Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: A Veteran’s Memoir

Poet and essayist Queen (Radical Poetics) delivers a bruising account of her experiences as a woman in the military. She begins by discussing her move from Los Angeles to Michigan to help her sister care for her children in the late 1990s. With their funds dwindling and Queen’s job at RadioShack providing little help, she enlisted in the Navy to help her pay for college and achieve her dream of becoming the first person in her family to earn a degree. During her time in the military, Queen endured physical injury, casual racism, and rampant misogyny from her fellow sailors, which forced her to conceal details about her physically abusive partner. Along the way, Queen meditates on female trailblazers throughout history, including French noblewoman Jeanne de Belleville, who became a privateer to avenge the death of her husband, and 19th-century Navy commander Mary Ann Brown Patten, using their stories to consider what might happen “if history met women in terms of both failure and success.” Throughout, Queen is by turns vulnerable and fierce, making resonant observations about the complexities of war, womanhood, and perseverance. Readers will find much to admire. Agent: Monika Woods, Triangle House. (Aug.)